Philwiki:Organization
This policy explains the ways that Philwiki links and connects between articles. For internal formatting, please see Philwiki:Style and formatting. Philwiki and the MediaWiki software it uses have multiple systems to allow for users and contributors to navigate articles and tie all of the articles together into a coherent whole. In order to make navigation through articles as easy as possible, specific policies have been created. Philwiki is a collection of information about Philmont and Northern New Mexico, but specific topics are related in many ways, so the connections are part of the information that Philwiki needs to provide. Essentially it is one immense document that is divided for ease and readability. These links ensure that this coherence is maintained. Beyond that, linking to other articles can explain topics that needed to explain the first subject. When related topics are shown to readers, then they can more thoroughly understand Philmont. Philwiki can also show people things of similar subject matter if the article is linked to others through categories and lists. Ways of explaining sequences and chronologies further explain when and where topics happen. Links The most basic form of organization is a basic link, which relates words in an article to the entirety of another article. Often, the words that are linked may be needed to explain the subject, and almost always are the same as the words linked in the original article. These are definitely useful; however, linking every other word is totally unnecessary. Generally, only link terms related Philmont and ones that might not be obvious to everyone. Links appear blue most of the time and purple after being selected, except for media, which always link to their source page. It is especially helpful for people gathering information to offer links in lists, where appropriate. One great method is to add a “See also” section at the end of articles. This acts like a quick index that shows relevant or similar articles of special importance. Links do not affect the articles that they connect to, so if there are mutual connections worth stating, updating the linked pages is preferred. If you want to see what articles link to a particular page, click on the text “What links here” in the “Toolbox” section of the left-hand index column. Adding a link To add a link, simply add double brackets around words that are the title of an article, like so: “ARTICLE NAME .” Note that placing letters or numbers after the brackets displays the whole word as one link. For example, “ brown bears displays Brown bears. Not all plural words link to articles with single titles, so this can be useful for that purpose, as well as others, since the principle works for any length of extension. Sometimes, it is easier to understand an article – or the text can be more elegant – if the actual article name is hidden and other text is used. To do this, simply use the standard link format but after the article name, use a text bar ( | ), followed by whatever text you prefer. For example, “the tallest mountain in Philmont ” reads “the tallest mountain in Philmont,” but links to Baldy Mountain. This technique is really only appropriate inside the body of articles. It is more useful otherwise to tell readers exactly what they are linking to. You can also direct the browser to sections of an article. Writing “Philwiki:Organization#Links will bring the browser directly to this section of the article. Redlinks Often, a link appears red and turns faded red after being selected. These “redlinks” either link to a misspelled article title or to a page that does not exist. Usually, there is no reason for that article to exist, and the link should be removed. Still, creating redlinks and keeping redlinks can alert people to the fact that there needs to be an article. The only reason to use redlinks is to encourage other contributors to create articles, since Philwiki does not permit creating “placeholder” pages. Clicking on a redlink brings the browser right into the editing screen. Interwiki links The MediaWiki software includes the opportunity to allow for linking to other wikis, via the Wiki Wiki Web, a parallel protocol to the standard World Wide Web. Philwiki does not recommend using interwiki links unless they are clearly shown to be links to separate websites, since interwiki links simply look like lighter versions of standard links. Interwiki links are permitted in the body of pages that are not articles, like policies or user pages. To make an interwiki link, simply type: NAME OF WIKI:NAME OF PAGE . For linking to other wikicities, there is a special policy handed down from Wikia, requiring a special redirect. Write, "w:c:WIKI NAME:PAGE NAME." External (HTML) links MediaWiki software does also allow for regular HTML links, using the URL of the webpage needed. Generally, on Philwiki external links are all grouped at the end of the article, in either the “External links” section, or the citation section. Except in extreme situations, do not link to articles inside the body of the text. If an article is used to cite sources, the use the citation formatting and place the relevant link in that section. To make an external link, simply write “http://ADDRESS.DOMAIN/PAGE.” . To make the link work, you must write the whole URL and not just the popular address. If you want to have the link read as different text, simply place a space between the URL and what you want the link to read, for example “definitely something to avoid.” reads, “definitely something to avoid.” Linking to Wikipedia Wikipedia is a wonderful resource, and Philwiki encourages contributors to link to it in several different standardized ways. It is easier to use interwiki links to go to Wikipedia, so Philwiki uses a special boilerplate box that can be placed at the top of articles that also have Wikipedia articles. Since Philwiki articles must always have a limited scope, this allows readers to learn more in a broader context. Another option is to include a link to Wikipedia, either an HTML link or an interwiki link in the “external links” section, in order to make it perfectly clear that Philwiki and Wikipedia are different sites. Philwiki prefers that interwiki links, including those to Wikipedia not be used in the body of articles in the encyclopedia. Rather than have readers get confused by moving outside , it is easier to tell them first that they are leaving Philwiki. Besides, most information in Philwiki is sufficient for general interest. Categories Categories are self-updating databases of articles and other categories. They are arranged in alphabetical order and into separate groupings of either categories or articles and lists. The best part of the system is that the links are automatically updated when the category link is included on the original page. However, practical limitations prevent any other way of showing precedence or relationships beside the sequence of letters. All categories, regardless of subject, are in the namespace “Category:” To either create or add an article to a list, add “Category:CATEGORY NAME” to the end of the article, behind everything else. It doesn’t matter where the code goes; the category bar will always be at the end of the article. However, it keeps the source of the article cleaner and easier to read. Before adding a category, make sure that there already exists one of a similar name. Lists Lists are essentially ordinary articles with a namespace of “List:” meaning that they are not in the main knowledgebase. In terms of organization, they are more flexible than categories but less accurate and less easily modified. With a list, a user can show readers the relations between articles beside the alphabetical order of names, relating sequence, chronology, geography, and other, data that expresses secondary relations of articles, beyond the presented grouping. To make a list, create an article prefixed with “List:” to designate that articles exist in the special list namespace. For example, creating an article called List: 2006 treks allows a user to list in order of difficulty the treks that are offered. When you create a new list, then you must link to it in relevant articles; otherwise it is impossible for anyone to find the list or know that it exists. Similarly, if a category already exists, then it is useful to links that include that articles or are related to that topic. Link boxes Link boxes are special templates that contain a large number of links, like a list, that exist inside an article. Usually they feature prominent articles in groups or broad subjects. The limited scope of Philwiki reduces the number of link boxes to under 100. Most have to do with Philmont programs or history. These require special understanding of MediaWiki markup as well as HTML. It is recommended that only more experienced users create boxes. Sequence boxes Sequence boxes are special link boxes that show an article in the context of the articles that precede and follow a particular topic in some sort of sequence. Generally, the article that defines the sequence is presented in the middle of the box as a link. There is a specific box to be included in camp articles that consolidates all the boxes into one. Routing and disambiguation Redirects Redirects automatically link one page to another page, so that multiple page names link to one article. For example, the pages Mount Baldy, Baldy, and Baldy mountain all link to the article at Baldy Mountain. Redirects bring all these similar pages to the right place and streamline linking. It allows for users to use shorthand terms to link to articles, as well as clarifying misperceptions by properly routing readers. When an article is moved, the page redirects to the new article. There are some small specific guidelines. It is important to ensure that there are no double redirects, where one redirected page leads to another, because the MediaWiki software does not automatically follow the redirect. Disambiguation pages and notes Often several articles are similar or could be confused for each other. Usually, redirects are used to direct readers to an appropriate article to clarify the situation. The specific articles are somehow qualified, usually by name, but also by a description in parentheses. Philwiki provides two options: *The first, for vague cases where there is no obviously more prominent article, or one where a term is so ambiguous that it could mean a multitude of things. In this case, a special page called a disambiguation page is created to show the options. For example Abreu automatically links to Abreu (disambiguation), which displays the articles about the Abreu family and places named after them. In each article, there should be an italicized article in the format of “’’This article is about XXXX. For other articles of a similar, see XXXX (disambiguation).’’” *The second is for cases when there is an article that is definitely more prominent. In this case, several similar pages will redirect to the most notable article. In each article there should be a be an italicized article in the format of “’’This article is about XXXX. For other articles of a similar, see XXXX (disambiguation)’’” or “’’This article is about XXXX. For other articles about YYYY or XXXX (place), please see YYYY or XXX (place) .’’” A disambiguation page is not necessary in this case, unless there are more than three similarly-named articles. See also *Philwiki:Namespaces *Philwiki:Style and formatting Category:Philwiki